1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns an apparatus to implement a medical procedure on a number of patients respectively located on various resting places with a transport apparatus with whose help a component of the apparatus necessary to implement the medical procedure can be transported to the various resting places of the patients.
The invention also concerns a method to implement a medical procedure on a number of patients respectively located at various resting places.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Apparatuses and methods of the above general type are known in the field of intensive care medicine. An example is known as the thorax overview exposure, which numbers among the most frequent imaging examinations in the field of medical technology. The thorax overview exposure normally is implemented daily on each patient in the intensive care unit in order, for example, to determine whether water is accumulating in the lungs or whether a lung inflammation is developing. To implement the x-ray exposure, a film cassette serving as an x-ray detector is placed under the patient. An x-ray apparatus with an x-ray radiator is subsequently moved by medical personnel to the bed of the patient to be examined.
A disadvantage of such known apparatuses and methods is that the x-ray apparatus weighing several hundred kg, must be moved by medical personnel by hand to the bed of the respective patient to be examined. Moreover, in spite of the high weight, the voltage generator capacity of such a mobile x-ray apparatus is limited. The limiting generator capacity leads to a limited radiation power, wherefore the quality of the x-ray exposures acquired with the mobile x-ray apparatus is normally poorer than the quality of the x-ray exposures acquired with a stationary x-ray apparatus. Moreover, that radiation load associated with the use of mobile x-ray apparatuses is high, because longer exposure times must be used to implement the x-ray exposure, due to the lower radiation power.